Firefighting is an extraordinarily dangerous activity. Firefighters are routinely at risk of injuries due to high heat, smoke inhalation, exposure to hazardous materials, structural collapse, and falling debris. As result, various attempts have been to design firefighting equipment that can be controlled remotely, allowing firefighters to keep a reasonable distance from the hottest, most dangerous regions of a fire zone. For instance, US patent application number US20120285706A1 by McLoughlin et al and U.S. Pat. No. 5,860,479A to LaFollette disclose firefighting nozzles carried by rotatable turrets on tank-like robotic land vehicles that can be sent into areas that are too hazardous for human entry. However, such vehicles have limited value for fires located in high-rise buildings or other locations above ground level.
Aerial firefighting vehicles such as helicopters and airtankers, or water bombers, have been used to drop water or fire retardant on wildfires, but such vehicles are very expensive and require skilled pilots. Furthermore, they are far better suited for dropping large quantities of water over large, spread out areas, than for aiming streams of water at precise locations.
Unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as UAVs or drones, have been used for taking photographs and gathering data at fire scenes, but not, to date, for extinguishing fires.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a relatively inexpensive and easy-to-operate, remotely controlled apparatus that can transport a firefighting nozzle to an elevated location and aim the nozzle with reasonable accuracy.